1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data obtaining method for a microwave oven, and more particularly to a data obtaining method for a microwave oven for obtaining data about food in the microwave oven so as to control a cooking operation of the microwave oven with respect to the food therein.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Generally, a microwave oven performs cooking operation by radiating microwaves generated from a magnetron onto food, which is a dielectric substance, in the microwave oven. That is, the microwaves collide molecules in the food and generate fictional heat for heating the food.
In such a microwave oven, a user places food on a turntable in a cooking chamber of the microwave oven, and manipulates function buttons on a control panel attached on a front side of the microwave oven to perform his/her desired cooking operation. Then, a control section of the microwave oven performs the cooking operation while adjusting a level of output power of the magnetron and cooking time in accordance with preset cooking data.
Recently, in order to meet increasing demands of the users for various cooking functions, there are a plurality of cooking item preset data corresponding to various foods and cooking purposes. Accordingly, the preset data corresponding to the user""s selected foods, that is, cooking items are loaded to adjust the power level of the magnetron and cooking time of the microwave oven, and the desired cooking operation is performed. Here, the user selects his/her desired foodstuff among a plurality of selectable cooking items by manipulating a plurality of cooking item buttons.
Further, when defrosting the frozen food or warming the refrigerated food in the microwave oven, the user selectively inputs the weight of the food, or defrosting or warming time by himself/herself.
Despite a plurality of cooking item preset data corresponding to the various foods and cooking purposes, the conventional microwave oven has a shortcoming in that the microwave oven cooks the food simply according to the preset data of the corresponding cooking item, regardless of actual status, i.e., the actual food and quantity of the food received in the microwave oven. Accordingly, the microwave oven hardly achieves proper cooking.
Further, in the conventional microwave oven, since there have to be a plurality of cooking item buttons for inputting execution commands for a plurality of cooking items, and also a complicated cooking algorithm corresponding to the manipulation of a plurality of the cooking item buttons, the manufacturing cost increases, while the user has inconvenience for finding his/her desired button among a plurality of the cooking time buttons.
Meanwhile, when the user inputs the cooking time by himself/herself for defrosting or warming operation, since the user inputs the cooking time solely by his/her guesswork, the actual frozen or refrigerated degree of the food is not considered, and the precise defrosting or warming operation cannot be expected.
Further, since the conventional microwave oven performs the cooking operation without considering the characteristics of the microwave oven, such as an output power changing characteristics of the magnetron, an energy loss absorbed in the cooking chamber, etc., the precise analysis about the characteristics and the changing degrees of the food cannot be achieved, and the cooking is improperly performed.
The present invention has been developed to overcome the above-mentioned shortcomings of the prior art, and accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a data obtaining method for a microwave oven for converting the food characteristics into data which is used as basic data for determining type of food and physical status of the food.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a data obtaining method for a microwave oven for averaging a plurality of data detected by a sensor for a certain cooking period, and for determining the type of food and physical status of the food in accordance with the averaged results.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a data obtaining method for a microwave oven for calculating data about physical status change of food only while considering the characteristic change of the microwave oven.
The above objects are accomplished by a data obtaining method for a microwave oven according to the present invention, including the steps of: (a) detecting data from food for a predetermined time period; and (b) calculating a summation of the detected data.
The summation of the detected data is averaged.
The detected data are comprised of data detected by a sensor during every 1 rotation period of a turntable of the microwave oven.
Another object is accomplished by a data obtaining method for a microwave oven according to another preferred embodiment of the present invention, including the steps of: (a) detecting data from food from a sensor; and (b) subtracting data about characteristics of the microwave oven which are prestored in the microwave oven from the detected data.
The detected data from the sensor are comprised of data which are detected during every 1 rotation period of a turntable of the microwave oven.
The data about the characteristics of the microwave oven are comprised of data about characteristics of output power of a magnetron of the microwave oven, and energy absorption characteristics in a cooking chamber of the microwave oven.
Another object is accomplished by a data obtaining method for a microwave oven according to yet another preferred embodiment of the present invention, including the steps of: (a) detecting data from food for a predetermined time period; (b) calculating a summation of the detected data; and (c) subtracting data about characteristics of the microwave oven which are prestored in the microwave oven from the summation of the detected data.
As described above, according to the present invention, by regularly detecting the characteristic data about the food in the microwave oven, and by averaging the detected data, the types of the food and the physical status change of the food according to the time progress can be analysed, and especially, the characteristic data about food only can be obtained by subtracting the data about the characteristics of the microwave oven from the detected data from the sensor. As a result, the appropriate food cooking can be achieved.